The Monaco Grand Prix may be Formula 1’s most iconic and picturesque race, but it’s also one of its most consistently dull.
However, there’s a lot of hope that this year’s race might be a little bit different.
In fact, drivers have a couple of reasons to expect it could be significantly more exciting than in years past.
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The first is that this season, the cars are significantly smaller and lighter than they have been in recent years. That’s critical because if you’re familiar with the layout of the Monaco circuit, there’s really not much room to overtake.
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“First, we have now lighter cars, which is, I think, a good thing, and we can definitely feel that. And for a track like Monaco, I think this has its benefits,” Ferrari driver — who just signed a multi-year extension with the team — and Monaco native Charles Leclerc said, per Road & Track.
Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar concurred in the sense that he thinks these cars will be more fun to whip around the streets of Monte Carlo in, but overtaking may not be any easier.
“Smaller cars, lighter — I think it should be more fun than it was last season,” Hadjar said. “Monaco is the best qualifying session of the year, so I expect a lot from this weekend. But the racing, I think, is going to be very similar to what you saw in the past. If you want to keep a car behind, it’s going to stay behind you.”
But it’s not just the size of the cars that could make this an interesting race. Because of the nature of the circuit, drivers won’t have to be as focused on deploying and regenerating energy from their car’s batteries as they have been on others.
“At least I don’t think we’re going to talk about batteries in Monaco,” Hadjar said.
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Leclerc noted that this is because the cars will regenerate through the circuit’s slower corners, and there are plenty of those.
“I think the electric side is going to be a lot less big in Monaco, just because we’ll be recharging quite a bit with all the corners that there are,” he said. “I’m quite excited for Monaco. I think it should be a good track for these cars.”